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Eight Games Left; Time to show True Colors – 4-1-08
With a lackluster March, it’s time for the Cavaliers to get it together.
It hasn’t be an easy season for the Cavaliers. Despite the fact they’ve all but locked down the fourth seed, it has been a trying year for the club. Most notably, there seemingly hasn’t been a game where the entire roster has been healthy and playing together. This has proven to be difficult when finding a productive rotation and dealing with an overhaul of the roster through trade, but it shows that Coach Mike Brown is a better basketball mind then he gets credit for.
The last three weeks, the Cavs have limbered at a 5-6 mark over that period, and they are now in the stretch run with eight games pending. Daniel Gibson and Ben Wallace are close to fully healed. Now is the time to get that rotation and cohesiveness aligned for the playoffs. The remaining games are winnable, with two games against Orlando and Detroit mixed in. Those games are practically meaningless to those two clubs, so it’s time for the Cavaliers to use these last few weeks to work out the kinks, define roles, get the new guys acclimated to the holdovers, and get ready for playoff basketball.
In 2007, they really turned it up as the postseason crept up. It’s time for this team to step it up and do the same. There hasn’t been much fire in this team as of late, and that has to end. Its imperative Gibson, Wally Szczerbiak and Damon Jones get their shots on point. Joe Smith and Zydrunas Ilgauskus need to be the offensive threats they can be down low. Wallace and Anderson Varejao must to be those pesky defenders that keep players from driving to the hoop. Delonte West has to be that starting point guard Danny Ferry envisioned when making the trade. It is important Sasha Pavlovic – a major key to the Cavs success in the postseason last year - needs to find his role alongside the new faces. Devin Brown must continue to be the versatile defensive asset he is as well. And with all that, LeBron James still must take his play to an all new level to lead his team from Eastern Conference Champs to being crowned with the NBA title.
There is no more time left – everyone is healthy. They’ve shown they can play with Boston and Detroit – now it’s time to find that second gear which has eluded them all season due to injury, trades and distractions. Most importantly, the Cavs need to prove that the Eastern Conference is a three-horse race, and not just a one-on-one match up.